The producer and music mogul Sean Combs was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 1991 in a lawsuit she filed on Thursday, a week after he settled a suit that accused him of raping and physically abusing Cassie, an R&B singer once signed to his label.
In the latest lawsuit, the plaintiff, Joi Dickerson-Neal, accused Mr. Combs of drugging her during an evening out in New York when she was on a break from Syracuse University, where she was a student. She was eventually driven to a place Mr. Combs was staying, where he raped her and recorded the encounter on video, according to the lawsuit.
“Combs’s conduct forever changed the trajectory of her career, denying her what might have been a lucrative and successful career in the music industry,” the lawsuit said of Ms. Dickerson-Neal.
The lawsuit was filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan shortly before this week’s deadline for the Adult Survivors Act, a state law that allowed people who said they were sexually abused to file claims even after the statute of limitations had expired.
Records kept by the state court system show that a third woman attempted to file a lawsuit against Mr. Combs under the Adult Survivors Act this week but that the suit was “returned for correction.” A lawyer listed for the anonymous plaintiff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nathalie Moar, a spokeswoman for Mr. Combs, who is known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, said he “completely denied and rejected” the claims of misconduct.
“He recognizes this as a money grab,” Ms. Moar said in a statement. “Because of Mr. Combs’s fame and success, he is an easy target for accusers who will falsify the truth, without conscience or consequence, for financial benefit.”
In her 22-page complaint, Ms. Dickerson-Neal, who had appeared briefly with Mr. Combs in a music video, said that she suffered emotional trauma and clinical depression after being assaulted and at one point filed police reports in New York and New Jersey. It was not clear precisely where or when any reports were filed.
When she later encountered Mr. Combs at a party, according to the lawsuit, he “got down on his knees” and insisted “that he wanted her to believe him when he said he did not do what she was saying.”
Ms. Dickerson-Neal said in her court papers that she had decided to come forward after reading about the lawsuit filed against Combs this month by the R&B singer Cassie. The parties reached a settlement one day after Cassie, born Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Combs of rape, and of physical abuse over about a decade.
Several cases have been filed against powerful men under the Adult Survivors Act in recent weeks, including Steven Tyler of Aerosmith; Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses; the music executive L.A. Reid; Neil Portnow, the former head of the organization behind the Grammy Awards; Mayor Eric Adams of New York; and the photographer Terry Richardson.
In a statement on Friday, lawyers for Ms. Dickerson-Neal said their client had “courageously” come forward “in an effort to hold Mr. Combs to account,” but declined to comment further.
Ben Sisario contributed reporting. Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
